Why exactly "For Profit" is bad?. Only competitive universities (good) will make profit.. The bad ones will get weeded out nicely. Without "For Profit" universities, you will only get universities which churn out ppl who expect handouts at every stage of life.

It doesn't seem a bad thing, I think. Let the for-profit "universities" teach the lousy students who just want better jobs, and the traditional universities will be left with the true academics, as they should be! It would do wonders for student motivation and learning speed at the traditional universities.

I wrote to my MP about this issue, and received the comments below. -- P

US style for-profit institutions: The Government hopes to kick start an expansion of new private for-profit providers of Higher Education (some in the US have a record of very aggressive recruitment practices, poor degree completion rates and high drop-out rates) and an expansion of FE College Higher Education places.Other likely proposals include changes to degree awarding powers and to acquiring the title of a 'University' or 'University College'; both of which are designed to make it easier for private for-profit institutions to enter a more 'competitive' Higher Education market and could again threaten the quality of Higher Education.

Threat of For-Profit Universities: There are concerns that the number of unregulated US for-profit universities in the UK will expand fast once the White Paper 'reforms' kick in, threatening the quality of our universities. The Minister has met with US firms Apollo Group Inc, Education Management Corporation and Kaplan, all of which have were investigated by a US Senate Inquiry into 'for-profit' higher education across America. A recent US Senate Inquiry revealed for-profit universities typically had low completion rates (among US for-profit institutions analysed by the Inquiry more than half of students withdrew within two years) and had adopted deceptive misleading or fraudulent recruitment practises (investigators visited 15 for-profit schools and found deceptive, misleading or fraudulent practices at all 15).

Best wishes,Ian Murray MPLabour Member of Parliament for Edinburgh South

In general, my understanding is that for profit universities in the US are at a competitive disadvantage, in terms of funding and acquisition of land, with public universities and still manage to perform well. In turn, this forces them to pursue degree opportunities that public universities do not, such as setting up part-time MBA programs in suburbs for employees who cannot commute into urban areas and maintain a job.

Many private colleges, such as my alma matter, are pursuing the same marketing strategies now.

Most libertarians also use the US collegiate and university system as an example of how competition and limited government intervention produces great results. For example, US K-12 schools perform poorly compared with countries like Korea, but are a standard of excellence for higher education.